Chapter VII

Soon after John was born, there had come a letter from Hannah saying that she and Fanny were going to stay with friends in Yorkshire and on their way intended to visit her whether she liked it or not.

"Every one knows we're going to Yorkshire," she had written, "so they won't guess we've broken the journey."

Mary smiled. Almost it was unbelievable to her now that once she herself had thought like that. Absolutely and actually unreal it seemed to her now that the human body could so be led and persuaded by the thoughts of its mind.

"Come," she wrote back. "We shall be proud to see you."

"Proud!" said Hannah, reading that. "It almost seems as if she meant to say she was proud of herself. I know she's not ashamed--but proud?"

"P'r'aps that's what she does mean," said Fanny. "Though without love, it doesn't seem to me she's got anything to be proud about."

Sharply Hannah looked at Fanny, for since these events had happened in the square, white house, there had grown a keener glance in the quiet nature of Hannah's eyes.

"Don't tell me, Fanny," she whispered, "don't tell me you'd go and do the same?"

"I'd do anything for love!" exclaimed Fanny hysterically. "Anything I'd do--but it would have to be for love."

Hannah went away to her room to pack, considering how swiftly the rupture of the moral code can break down the power of principle.

"Fanny was never like that before," she muttered as she gathered her things. "At least she would never have said it. Mary's done more harm than ever she knows. Poor Mary! She can't really be proud--that's only her pride."

Yet proud indeed they found she was. At the end of the red brick path leading up to the house between the beds now filled with wallflowers, she greeted them with her baby in her arms. This was her challenge. So they must accept her. It was not to be first herself as though nothing had happened and then her child as though what must be, must be borne with. It was they two or never, sisters though they might be, would she wish to see them.

Her first thought, as they stepped out of the village fly that brought them, was how old and pinched and worn they looked. For youth now had come back to her with the youth she carried in her arms. Thirty she was then, yet felt a child beside them. For one instant at the sight of her her heart ached for Fanny. Fanny, she knew, was the one whom the sight of her child would hurt the most. But the contact of greeting, the lending him to them for their arms to hold, deep though her heart was filled with pity for them, in that moment there was yet the deeper welling of her pride.

He won them, as well she knew he would. In Hannah's arms, he looked up with his deep, black eyes into hers and made bubbles with his lips. No woman could have resisted him and she, who never would have child of her own, clung to him in a piteous weakness of emotion.

Fanny stood by, with jerking laughter to hide her eagerness, muttering--"Let me have him, Hannah. Let me take him a moment now."

And when in turn she held him, then above Mary's pride that already had had its fill, there rose the consciousness of all her sister was suffering. Twitching with emotion were Fanny's lips as she kissed him. Against that thin breast of hers she held him fast as though she felt for him to give her the sense of life. Not even a foolish word such as Hannah had murmured in his ears was there in her heart to say to him. It was life she was holding so close; life that had never been given her to touch; life, even borrowed like this, that had the power to swell the sluggish race of her blood to flooding; life that stung and hurt and smarted in her eyes, yet made her feel she was a woman in whom the purpose of being might yet be fulfilled.

Unable any longer to bear the sight of that, Mary turned away into the house to prepare their coming. John, she left in Fanny's arms, having no heart to rob her of him then.

"They've come," she whispered to Mrs. Peverell. "They've come."

"Well?" she inquired. "Was it to shame 'ee?"

For answer Mary took her by the arm and led her to the window.

"Look," she said, and pointed out over the bowl of daffodils on the window sill, down the red brick path to the gate in the oak palings. And that which Mrs. Peverell beheld was the sight of two women, no longer young, lost to all sense of foolishness in their behavior, emotionalized beyond control, swept beyond self-criticism by a thing, all young with life, that kicked its bare legs and crowed and bubbled at its lips, then lying still, lay looking at them with great eyes of wisdom as though in wonder at their folly.

They stayed till later that afternoon, then caught an evening train to Manchester. Mary travelled a mile with them in the old fly, then set out to walk home alone.

"Don't tire yourself," said Hannah, leaning out of the window, as they drove away. "You must still take care."

"Tire myself?" Mary cried back. "I don't feel as if I could ever be tired again."

And still leaning out of the window, watching her with her firm stride as she disappeared into the wood, Hannah knew their sister had found a nearer stream to the heart of life than ever that which flowed through Bridnorth.